Slow to go home
The lookout stationed in the canyon shouted hurrah
at the first sign of the underground stars. We were
all there, in our camp lights and sweaters, and we
raced down the slope following his voice. It was
almost time, he could tell from one flicker he saw
down below all the dead bodies and sticks. I caught
sight of a detective, waiting alone on one of the rocks
above us. He caughed and caught something glowing
out of the air, crushed it between thumb and forefinger.
The shadowed bottom of the lake grew lighter. Toaster
ovens in houses late at night have never been so quiet
as we all were there, clutching the bunched up material
around our sleeves. The underground stars, a vast
network that stretches from Valle Hermoso out through
West Alto Bonito and flickers along the edges of Amada
Acres, were appearing light by lonely light. In boots,
on hillsides, in love but never saying, the people whose
lives are unreal but stories are true were content just to
see it happen. Just to wake you up. When the stars
are out at last and novelty starts to turn to acceptance,
and yawns, they go back to their houses, wipe their feet,
and step into the world we're too slow to make for them.
posted by Adam at 2:29 AM [edit]
A statement I'm working on
Amada Acres is a small "colonia," or neighborhood, on the U.S.-Mexico border in Starr County, Texas. In 1997, the Census Bureau named Starr County as the poorest county in the U.S., and not much has changed since then. The colonia of Amada Acres, like other colonias in Starr County and dotted all along the Border, lacks paved roads and other basic services like sewer and clean water.
Amada Acres is on few maps and is in even fewer imaginations. Somehow, though, during my year working at a non-profit that addresses housing and land issues in the colonias, its name infected me. "Beloved Acres," the translation of its Spanglish name, seemed so florid a name for such a paper-blank landscape. Amada Acres, it seemed to me, was lacking more than just sewer pipes--it was lacking the stories its name deserved.
This comic strip, unlike the strips I see when I open my daily paper, has no central characters and no continuous subplots. What remains constant, instead, is place: we are always in Amada Acres. Sometimes it is spoken of as an ancient kingdom, sometimes as a place of political peril, and sometimes simply as an extension of the world we already know. But certain fixtures--forlorn detectives, empty word balloons, underground stars, and scorching tomorrows--locate us firmly within one mythology.
I hope to make Amada Acres a place where new ideas can be heaved atop high poles like a flag on a national holiday. Some of these ideas, like flags themselves, will be taken down and folded at the end of the day to await the next proper occasion. Others, picked up by a gust of wind, may come free from their fastenings and soar. I will watch them--as I do all things that fly--with great hope on their behalf, knowing at the same time that I, land-locked, must now also lose them.
posted by Adam at 7:02 PM [edit] 